Jun 30, 2014

In recent weeks the Daily Star has become a little obsessed with tall tales of invincible giant rats - some the size of cows - who are threatening to kill us all. The paper has been dividing its time between stories about humungo-rodents and plugs for Big Brother. So it is a happy coincidence that today the Star reports some giant "killer" rats have turned up at the set of Big Brother in Elstree to give the show some much-needed publicity.

However, it's probably too early to panic just yet. Elstree Studios took to Twitter to suggest the story should be taken with "a large pinch of salt" while others who work at the famous studios have been in touch to say they have neither seen nor heard any report of rats - giant or otherwise - at Elstree.

Jun 29, 2014

It seems even in the darkest depths of despondency there is no gloom at the World Cup that cannot be lifted by football fans seeing themselves on the big screen. In a heartbeat, we have seen the faces of fans go from "we cannot bear the pain" to "look Mum! I'm on TV" complete with waving, smiling and sometimes even a double-thumbs-up when they see the cameras are on them. Followers on Twitter will know this is something I have been slightly obsessed with during the World Cup:

I was even moved to wonder whether the power of the Big Screen Effect could be employed to lighten the mood at events such as funerals. Now, brilliant young film-maker Graham Love has been in touch to share this video which shows what that might look like as well as exploring other scenarios where the 'Big Screen Effect' could cheer people up.

Jun 25, 2014

"People keep saying 'if this happened in the street he'd be arrested, he'd be locked up.' Football is not played in the street and it is different, as are most sports. We've got to be realistic, this is a sporting venue and things happen inside grounds that do not happen out on the street. They're not bound by the same rules. Whether you like it or not, that's life."

IPSO, the newspaper industry's self-appointed regulator, designed to replace the toothless and ineffectual Press Complaints Commission, is not even fully up and running but already it is under fire.

Gemma Dowler, the sister of murdered Milly Dowler whose phone was hacked by the News Of The World, has hit out at IPSO calling it "meaningless" and urging David Cameron to make good on promises to bring in effective regulation of the press.

Dowler pointed out IPSO is just a case of "the newspapers looking after themselves", adding "the same newspaper groups who let us down so badly have set up another meaningless regulator called IPSO".

IPSO is also underfire after the Advertising Standards Authority banned an advert which claimed IPSO would deliver "all the key elements Lord Justice Leveson called for in his report". The ASA ruled that claim was misleading as IPSO has selectively chosen only some Leveson recommendations, none of which were specifically presented as being "key" or otherwise by Lord Justice Leveson. According to the Media Standards Trust IPSO satisfies just 12 out of 38 recommendations made in the Leveson report.

Martin Moore, director of the Media Standards Trust, who was one of the complainants to the ASA, responded: "Those establishing IPSO can no longer falsely claim that it delivers all the key elements of Leveson."

However, although the ad, taken out by an organisation calling itself the Free Speech Network, has now been banned, the Media Standards Trust was not happy that some elements of its complaint were not upheld by the ASA.

Last month IPSO drew fierce criticism after it announced the appointment to its board of former Sun executive William Newman who has in the past defended the paper's infamous coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.

Jun 21, 2014

The BBC's Question Time may not have been on this week due to the football but there have still been plenty of people making ill-informed comments about open borders, a deluge of foreigners and the dangers of uncontrolled immigration.

Journalists, broadcasters and pundits have been among the great many people rushing to blame England's pitiful performance in the World Cup on foreigners 'coming over here, kicking our footballs'. It's a convenient scapegoat for those whose own lazy route-one tactic is to blame foreigners for anything that requires a more complex answer.

It is a natural extension of the nasty media-fuelled myth, fed upon by the likes of UKIP, that all immigration is bad - that if an immigrant is benefitting from being here then the country must somehow be suffering. Like all nasty myths about immigration, it's simply not true and almost certainly damaging.

English football

If England's performances in recent years have shown us anything (beyond the obvious fact we've just not been good enough) it's surely not that we need more English players exposed to English football but rather we need more English players exposed to overseas football.

We need English clubs to become exporters as well as importers of talent. That would do far more to encourage greater investment in a production line of English talent than just arbitrarily cracking down on the number of foreign players.

To suggest stopping foreigners playing football in England would just make English people better at football is like suggesting a cap on Polish builders would make us all better at DIY.

Between 1974 and 1994, during which period overseas signings were very thin on the ground at English clubs, England failed to qualify for three World Cups. Since 1994 we have qualified for four out of four but the most successful international teams during this period have typically been very international in terms of where they play their club football and they have been countries who are exporters of talent in significant numbers. USA 94 was won by a Brazil team whose starting eleven included eight players who played their club football overseas. France 98 was won by the hosts whose starting eleven included ten players who played their club football overseas. In Japan in 2002 the final was won by Brazil whose starting eleven included nine players who played their club football overseas.

The pattern appears to fall down slightly at Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010 when Italy's starting eleven in the final were all domestic-based and Spain fielded just two overseas-based players, though any football fan will tell you both Italy and Spain were still noted exporters of footballing talent in the run up to winning those trophies. It should also be noted the other finallists at those tournaments, France (2006) and the Netherlands (2010) started with seven and six overseas-based players respectively and are both significant exporters as well as importers of footballing talent.

To put all these numbers into some perspective, over the last four World Cups, England have only included two overseas-based players in total and they were both at the same tournament; David Beckham (Real Madrid) and Owen Hargreaves (Bayern Munich) in 2006. Throughout this period you could pretty much count on the fingers of one hand the transfers of note from the English top flight to overseas leagues.

The only England squad member at the current World Cup who doesn't play in his domestic league is third choice goalie Fraser Forster. And even then he has still only made it as far as Scotland. At the current World Cup only Russia have a less 'international' international team. The likes of Argentina (20 out of 23 squad players plying their trade overseas), Brazil (19), Chile (19), France (15), the Netherlands (13), Portugal (16), Uruguay (22), Belgium (20) and Germany (7) leave England looking like the rather backwards, insular nation some would like us to be.

Let's not allow those with an anti-immigration agenda to hijack the nation's desire for sporting success when the very isolationism they favour may already be damaging our chances.

Jun 19, 2014

The Telegraph claims to have discovered the existence of a 1,000 page dossier on the World Cup prepared by the BBC. It reports:

"There was a time when BBC commentators like John Motson were expected to do their own homework ahead of big games. But the modern-day BBC pundit has no need for coloured pens, filing cabinets or football yearbooks, because an army of researchers has compiled a giant book of World Cup facts for them. The BBC's "book", which is available electronically to presenters, is understood to run to more than 1,000 pages."

The Telegraph's chief reporter Gordon Rayner appears to suggest this tome would have been kept a closely guarded secret had commentator Steve Wilson not "let slip the existence of the BBC fact book during live coverage of the Argentina v Bosnia-Hercegovina match".

Tweets with hashtags: Hardly the hallmarks of something that was meant to be a secret.

It seems unlikely the BBC was trying to keep this secret and more likely they just didn't think anybody would be that interested - or surprised - to hear they do some research and preparation ahead of such major events (even if commentators don't always get it all right on the night).

For the record, the BBC has been providing these briefing books for staff covering major tournaments for the past 20 years, so it isn't even new.

It should also be pointed out, the "army of researchers" was just four people - Craig Barnes, Paul Birch, Tom McCoy and Noel Sliney - all named on the front of the book, as you can clearly see in Hartson's photo. What's more, the "1,000" pages the Telegraph reports is also actually just 436, according to one of the writers:

And the Telegraph's report is also wrong in its initial assertion that such briefing books would never have troubled the travel bag of John Motson. In John Motson's autobiography Motty: 40 Years in the Commentary Box, the BBC commentator writes not only about these books but also underlines the fact it is the work of just four people (which would be a rubbish "army") who do it as part of their day job:

"A team of four...working in the Match of the Day office service commentators, editors and producers with background material... They produce huge, detailed volumes of information before major events such as the World Cup."

The lesson here would appear to be if you're going to criticise somebody for doing too much research at least make sure you've done enough yourself.

Of course, the facts should never get in the way of the desired story and the Telegraph will be delighted with the reaction its erroneous claims have elicited. One commenter wrote:

"Yet more proof, as if any were needed, how these idiots who run the BBC waste our license fees. Let the grossly overpaid commentators do their own damn research - that's what they're paid for and sack the idiot at the BBC who authorised this waste of our money!"

Putting aside the irony of this armchair economist considering an inaccurate story to be proof of anything he would do well to ask himself how much more expensive it would be to have apparently "grossly overpaid commentators" pulling together a 1,000 page dossier... or even a 436 page one.

Jun 18, 2014

A post on this blog yesterday shared a number of findings from a survey of 1,120 Media Blog readers into their thoughts on the quality of commentary and punditry at the World Cup. Today's findings reveal what those same 1,120 people said when asked their opinion on who provides the better commentary, the BBC or ITV, and how highly they rate the two broadcasters.

The Guardian and a predictably outraged Daily Mail are reporting that expenses released by the BBC have revealed that during the period of October to December 2013 a senior executive bought 48 cupcakes on expenses as a 'thank you' to staff:

Or to put it another way, several journalists have been over three months' worth of BBC expenses and the most newsworthy thing they uncovered was some cupcakes.

Jun 17, 2014

There have been a lot of complaints about the poor quality of the commentators and pundits on both the BBC and ITV during the first few days of this World Cup. You may argue it has always been thus and commentators, like referees, are there to be moaned about but research conducted by the Media Blog suggests many viewers believe the quality of commentary is actually getting worse.

Perhaps it's the heat or the pace of the modern game but there have certainly been some terrible performances in and around the commentary box. The hackneyed and banal Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend on ITV have understandably been a common cause of complaint. But perhaps the most notable performance to date was that of Jonathan Pearce on BBC1 on Sunday evening.

"3-0! What a good goal!" he boomed as the ball rolled harmlessly wide of the post for a goal kick.

"It's gone into the side-netting, Jonathan," said pundit Martin Keown, with the exhausted tone of a parent who had long since tired of picking up the spoons their child keeps dropping.

It had been a long night for Keown sitting alongside Pearce. There was his apparent shock when a second yellow card was followed by a red card and there was his now infamous ranting about goal-line technology. Pearce angrily claimed the technology didn't work despite it showing a ball as being 'no goal' right up until the moment it crossed the line, at which point the system recorded it as a goal, not unreasonably.

It's unclear what more FIFA could have done to make this easier for a confused Jonathan Pearce to understand.

The role of the commentator is to make things clearer for those watching at home but Pearce was more confused than any of us. In the background there were the muffled groans of Martin Keown trying to explain the technology was working and it was a goal but he was drowned out by Pearce screaming "THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FLAWLESS!!" presumably shaking his fist at the heavens as he did so.

So what is happening? Are commentators really getting worse? Research conducted by The Media Blog suggests people certainly think so. A survey of 1,120 Media Blog readers (who may not be entirely representative of the UK population but are nonetheless a smart and reliable bunch) revealed more than half think the quality of commentators is on the slide.

There may be a number of reasons for this, including the fact the overall quality has declined thanks to broadcasters persisting with poor commentators and adding an unlikely mix of under-prepared former pros into their stable of pundits. We also shouldn't discount the possibility that broadcasters know some of their commentators aren't very good and persist with them on purpose, but more of that in a minute.

Of course there is a huge amount of subjectivity to all of this. We may not agree with an opinion given or a prediction made. We may simply not appreciate a commentator's over-reliance upon awful pre-written puns and lazy cliches that get lazier with every repeat use. Or we may simply not like a commentator or pundit because of their past club allegiances or history. Even if Glenn Hoddle was a great pundit, for example, there would surely be many who couldn't take a word he says seriously, or understand his employment by ITV, because of his non-footballing opinions.

Phil Neville's debut at this World Cup resulted in widespread derision on social media and 455 complaints to the BBC. It's safe to say he has a lot of improving to do and it wasn't a good performance by any measure, but Neville was also unpopular as a player. It's likely he has carried some of that baggage into his commentating career.

Then there is the knowledge many of us have as a result of the wall-to-wall football on many dedicated sports channels and platforms such as YouTube. Relatively speaking, commentators used to be experts but now their audience are more knowledgeable about football on the domestic and international stage than ever before. Mistakes by commentators are likely to be picked up more often.

And when mistakes are picked up they are shared and amplified on social media.

On this point, it should be said those responding to the Media Blog survey were all Twitter users.

And it's not just gaps in their knowledge which leave commentators open to abuse. They regularly make mistakes in terms of describing what they think they have seen and the backtracking can sometimes be very clumsy indeed. As we watch on large HD screens with instant replays from multiple super-slo-mo camera angles and the crowdsourced opinion of a jury of our online peers, the commentators' misreading of a situation is more glaring than it ever was.

Robbie Savage is quick to blame a referee during Monday night's Ghana v USA match for seeing an incident in exactly the same way Savage had.

So what does all this mean for our overall experience of match commentators and pundits? While 38 per cent of respondents to the Media Blog research said the quality is "generally OK", 51 per said it is more often than not "poor". Just 6.8 per cent said they enjoy the commentary on its own merits.

But that isn't to say others don't enjoy it. The research suggests more than half of Twitter users who took the survey consider criticising the commentators while watching football to be "part of the experience", while more than a quarter may think the commentary is "terrible" but they find the reactions and online conversations about it "funny".

It is not inconceivable therefore that some broadcasters know their commentators and pundits are a bit duff - how could they not - but they know they get people talking, for better or worse. That would certainly make it a lot easier to understand why broadcasters persist with certain pundits and commentators.

Criticism certainly never seems to have harmed ITV's Andy Townsend who was revealed by the Media Blog research to be the least popular of the pundits and commentators covering the World Cup for UK television.

The below word cloud shows which pundits and commentators were cited most often when respondents were given a free choice to name their least popular. The scale related to number of mentions:

However, joining in the criticism of the so-bad-it's-funny commentary isn't for everybody and some are switching off - or at least switching off the sound. Among the respondents to the Media Blog research, there were 11 per cent who regularly mute their TV to avoid the commentary and 18.5 per cent who find commentary from another source, such as the radio:

Jun 15, 2014

If you were one of those England fans who jumped from your seat to celebrate Raheem Sterling's 30-yard shot into the side-netting during Saturday night's clash with Italy then you're in good company. Even the BBC's graphics team chalked up Sterling's effort in the fourth minute as a goal:

It appears Ed Miliband is intent on stumbling from one PR disaster to the next, as if trying hard to torpedo Labour's chances at the 2015 general election.

His latest PR gaffe was the decision to advertise The Sun newspaper. Somehow Miliband failed to anticipate the inevitable backlash. Forget that Clegg and Cameron took part in the same publicity stunt, their participation jarred less because Clegg has nothing left to lose and Cameron, as Tory party leader, is duty-bound to do a bit of sucking up to Rupert Murdoch.

To make matters worse, Miliband's subsequent apology was so half-hearted it too has backfired and cost him any brownie points he might have scored with The Sun who turned on the hapless leader:

"We've a question for Ed Miliband. What, exactly, is there to apologise for about having your picture taken holding our special England issue? ...a celebration of England and Englishness... But Ed Miliband seems to think that's something to apologise for... It makes you wonder how Ed Miliband think he is going to persuade English voters to put him into No 10."

The Sun's criticism may be a bit of a stretch, but either way they've managed to make Miliband look ridiculous twice in a week.

And this is the problem for Miliband. It is currently very easy to make him look ridiculous.

Of course it shouldn't matter that Miliband seems "weird". It shouldn't matter that he can't eat a bacon sandwich without looking like he is trying to pass a very painful stool.

It shouldn't matter. But it does. It was Miliband's own party and Labour's army of pollsters and spin doctors who schooled us all in the modern belief that politics is about style over substance and unless they can break away from such superficial PR and inject a little more substance back into their approach, Miliband remains on a hiding to nothing.

Jun 13, 2014

The Sun has roped Ed Miliband and David Cameron into a publicity stunt to advertise the newspaper ahead of the World Cup...

Miliband looks like he is being held hostage while Cameron works on his pretend reading pose.

The party leaders' agreeing to pose with the paper is part of a huge marketing campaign which has seen The Sun send free copies of the paper to 22 million households around England.

However, the free version of the paper was not delivered to Liverpool, where the paper is still widely boycotted due to its notorious coverage of the Hillsborough disaster, and postal workers in neighbouring parts of the North-West also refused to deliver it. Meanwhile, some people took to Twitter to say they planned to send it back 'freepost' to the address listed on The Sun's website or use it to line their cat's litter tray, while others left out notices stating they didn't want to receive it.

So has the story moved on? Back in 2009 the NHS reported that claims of a tomato wonderpill were critically undermined by a lack of evidence. When the Express ran the story again in 2013 the paper itself quoted an expert saying "more trials are needed". Now, in 2014, another source quoted by the papers says "it would need much larger trials to investigate outcomes carefully".

Jun 08, 2014

It's safe to say the latest blast from Paddy Power's controversial blunderbuss of viral publicity worked better than even the bookmaker could have hoped.

Images tweeted out from the Paddy Power Twitter account appeared to show an area of Amazon rainforest with the words 'C'mon England' shaved into the landscape by loggers. The message was signed 'PP'.

While many people familiar with the dark arts of image manipulation were willing to believe there was more to this than met the eye, there were a great many who believed the bookmaker had genuinely cut down trees in the name of publicity.

The reaction online was strong and very profane. Even actor Dominic Monaghan, who played Merry the Hobbit in The Lord of the Rings movies, waded in:

The Mirrorcovered the story and the Daily Mail described it as an "ecological catastrophe".

To be fair to all those people who fell for it, the images were incredibly convincing, especially once images taken from different angles emerged.

However, while Paddy Power is no stranger to courting controversy surely even they wouldn't really have gone to such lengths just to annoy people on Twitter and get some money-can't-buy publicity on the back of the outraged reaction.

And they didn't.

Paddy Power has published a full explanation of the technical wizardry behind the photos on its blog.

Just in case there are people who still don't believe them, Paddy Power has released a new image showing an entirely different message carved into the rainforest, with accompanying text claiming the stunt was to raise greater awareness of not only Paddy Power (though mainly Paddy Power presumably) but also the very real deforestation taking place in Brazil:

Jun 04, 2014

Guardian columnist Marina Hyde has hit out at controversial former Sky Sports presenter Richard Keys for defending Qatar's role as host of the 2022 World Cup. Hyde suggests Keys, who now lives and works in Doha "offers an apologist's masterclass" when sticking up for his "impeccable overlords".

Hyde brands Keys Qatar's own "Lord Haw-Haw" after he took to his personal blog to defend Qatar's suitability to host the competition. But the Guardian, of all publications, probably needs to be careful when accusing others of shameless fluffing on behalf of Qatar.

It was only under the pressure of intense criticism that the Guardian reluctantly admitted Taylor's puff piece was the result of some VIP treatment in the Gulf, paid for by the team behind the Qatar 2022 bid.

Jun 02, 2014

Remember when we were told England could be awarded the 2010 Fifa World Cup after South Africa had been deemed to be too far behind in its building work? Or what about that time we were told London was to be awarded the 2016 Olympics because Rio wouldn't be ready?

Now today we're being told England has 'got' the 2018 World Cup. The Daily Star has made a massive leap in assuming that revelations of widespread corruption behind the scenes of Qatar's successful 2022 bid, exposed by the Sunday Times, will result in not only the 2022 World Cup being moved to another country but also the 2018 World Cup, currently scheduled to take place in Russia, which will move to England. This despite the fact Russia has not been implicated in the latest corruption scandal to rock Fifa.

The Daily Star's sources are some unnamed "experts".

It seems a major sporting event cannot be scheduled on foreign soil without somebody running a fanciful story about a series of events that could lead to England having to step in and save the day.

It should be noted the only time in recent years that a bidding process has been re-opened and a new host city or nation chosen was for the 2005 World Athletics Championships, when the plan's of host city London descended into chaos and a new host city was needed.